The authors are jointly responsible forthe theoretical argumentand analysis. M. Craig Brown suggested the topic of civil service reform. Maureen J. McConaghy, Nancy Brandon Tuma, Glenn R. Carroll, and P. Y Liu provided methodological advice, Sharon Stevens aided early computational work. Both of us are grateful to Phillip Bonacich for his advice throughout the research, and to Marshall W. Meyer, John W. Meyer, William G. Roy, Herman Turk, Richard A. Berk, David McFarland, Oscar Grusky, and Jeffrey Pfeffer fortheir helpful comments on an eariner draft. This paper investigates the diffusion and institutionalization of change in formal organization structure, using data on the adoption of civil service reform by cities. It is shown thatwhen civil service procedures are required bythe state, they diffuse rapidly and directly from the state to each city. When the procedures are not so legitimated, they diffuse gradually and the underlying sources of adoption change overtime. In the lattercase, early adoption of civil service by cities is related to internal organizational requirements, with city characteristics predicting adoption, while late adoption is related to institutional definitions of legitimate structural form, so that city characteristics no longer predict the adoption decision. Overall, the findings provide strong support for the argument that the adoption of a policy or program by an organization is importantly determined by the extent to which the measure is institutionalizedwhether by law or by gradual legitimation.

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Institutional Sources of Change in the Formal Structure of Organizations: The Diffusion of Civil Service Reform, 1880-1935

Although much has been learned from cross-sectional research on marriage, an understanding of how marriages develop, succeed, and fail is best achieved with longitudinal data. In view of growing interest in longitudinal research on marriage, the authors reviewed and evaluated the literature on how the quality and stability of marriages change over time. First, prevailing theoretical perspectives are examined for their ability to explain change in marital quality and stability. Second, the methods and findings of 115 longitudinal studies--representing over 45,000 marriages--are summarized and evaluated, yielding specific suggestions for improving this research, Finally, a model is outlined that integrates the strengths of previous theories of marriage, accounts for established findings, and indicates new directions for research on how marriages change.

The longitudinal course of marital quality and stability: A review of theory, methods, and research.

The history of an individual or group can always be characterized as a sequence of events People finish school, enter the labor force, marry, give birth, get promoted, change employers, retire, and ultimately die Formal organizations merge, adopt innovations, and go bankrupt Nations experience wars, revolutions, and peaceful changes of government It is surely the business of sociology to explain and predict the occurrence of such events Why is it, for example, that some individuals try marijuana while others do not? Why do some people marry early while others marry late? Do educational

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/270718.pdf

Discrete-Time Methods for the Analysis of Event Histories

Schwartz, Richard D. and James C. Miller 1964 "Legal evolution and societal complexity." American Journal of Sociology 70:159-69. Sheleff, Leon Shaskolsky 1975 "From restitutive law to repressive law: Durkheim's 'The Division of Labor in Society' re-visited." European Journal of Sociology 16:16-45. Spitzer, Steven 1975 "Punishment and social organization: a study of Durkheim's theory of penal evolution." Law and Society Review 9:613-37. Webb, Stephen D. 1972 "Crime and the division of labor: testing a Durkheimian model." American Journal of Sociology 78:643-56.

The Liability of Newness: Age Dependence in Organizational Death Rates

Tobit models: A survey

There is wide interest among sociologists in the study of change but little reflection of this interest in sociological research methods. In this paper we consider the advantages of and procedures of dynamic analysis of event-history data-data givin the number, timing, and sequence of changes in a categorical dependent variable. We argue for grounding this analysis in a continuous-time stochastic model. This permits the data to be fully utilized; it also allows a unified treatment of the various outcomes analyzed in the many approaches that use only part of the information contained in such data. We focus on the familiar continuos-time Markov model, summarize its properties, report its implications for various outcomes, describe extensions to deal with population heterogeneity and time dependence, and outline a maximum-likelihood procedure for estimating the extended model from event-history data. The discussion in illustrated with an empirical analysis of the effects of an income-maintenance experiment o...

Dynamic Analysis of Event Histories

In this paper we report estimates of the impacts of the Seattle and Denver Income-Maintenance Experiments on marital dissolution and remarriage. To assess the experimental impacts, we use a stochastic model of rare events in which the rate at which an event occurs is assumed to depend log linearly on a set exogenous variables. Overall, income maintenance raises the rate of marital dissolution. For black, white, and Chicana women, the greatest increase occurs at the support levels closest to the control situation. The impact of income maintenance on remarriage differs by race-ethnicity. For Chicanas, the rate of remarriage decreases as the level of support increase. For blacks and whites, income maintenance has no discernible impact on the rate of remarriage. The results provide empirical evidence that a change in economic situation does affect marital events in low-income populations.

Income and Marital Events: Evidence from an Income-Maintenance Experiment

Using data from the Seattle and Denver Income-Maintenance Experiments, this paper discusses the effects of income and changes in income on marital dissolution. In an earlier article, we presented evidence of an experimental impact on marital dissolution and discussed how the pattern of effects found could be accounted for by nonlinear income and independence effects. The income effect decrease the marital dissolution rate by increasing the family's economic well being. The independence effect increase the dissolution rate by reducing the economic dependence of the more dependent partner (usually the wife) on the marriage. In this article, we present a model of nonlinear income and independence effects that accounts for much of the experimental-control difference reported in the earlier paper. According to the model, the effect of an income-maintenance program on marital dissolution depends not only upon the magnitude of the payment a couple receives but also on their level of income before the program, th...

Income and Independence Effects on Marital Dissolution: Results from the Seattle and Denver Income-Maintenance Experiments

We review the reasons for expecting a negative income tax (NIT) to affect marital dissolution rates and present a stochastic model of marital dissolution The analysis reveals that the experimental NIT programs increased the martial dissolution rates for blacks and whites but not Chicanos The differences in the magnitude of the responses by NIT guarantee level suggest that there are nonpecuniary differences between the experimental programs and existing income-support programs We compare the Seattle and Denver Income Maintenance Experiments findings with the findings from the other income maintenance experiments and discuss implications for welfare reform

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/145406

Lyle P. Groeneveld

Papers

Dynamic Analysis of Event Histories

Income and Marital Events: Evidence from an Income-Maintenance Experiment

Income and Independence Effects on Marital Dissolution: Results from the Seattle and Denver Income-Maintenance Experiments

The Effects of Negative Income Tax Programs on Marital Dissolution

Limitations of the Seattle and Denver Income-Maintenance Analysis